Without Regrets
by half-sleeping
Summary: A Reborn!Loveless fusion AU. The new fighters are being matched with their sacrifices today, and Tsuna finds himself looking forward to it. Poor fool.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Without Regrets**  
**Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, and- well, you'll see.  
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything. (And I do mean everything)  
Summary: The new fighters are being matched with their sacrifices today, and Tsuna finds himself looking forward to it.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," said Gokudera Hayato with a sort of stunned anger, staring at Yamamoto Takeshi. It was the beginning of the time when fighters chose their sacrifices- or, rather, _found_ them, and vice-versa.

He was matched up in Tireless, where he had expected to be in a as yet-unnamed (never to be named, now) pair with Sawada Tsunayoshi. Oh the humanity.

Tail lashing in anger, he stomped off to shout futilely at the seven teachers, and Yamamoto gave Tsuna his usual calm _I'll take care of this_ casual good-bye wave, then sauntered after him.

Very relieved- Gokudera-kun would do much better with Yamamoto than with him, Tsuna wanted a sacrifice who wouldn't actually cry tears of joy when he took damage for you- Tsuna hopefully scanned the crowd, which was both noisy and thinning as pairs well, paired off and exclaimed with either horror or delight at their names.

Across the hall Deathless looked on with serene smugness, as Rokudo Mukuro and Chrome Dokuro had come to them already matched, in name, appearance and demeanor. Chrome gave Tsuna the tiniest of acknowledging twitches with her tail, turning her eye upon Merciless, one little yellow bird and one Hibari Kyouya.

No one, not even some of the teachers, were entirely sure how Hibari had managed to snag a bird as his sacrifice. Certainly in all the battles they'd ever fought the bird had never take so much as a scratch, and appeared to spend all it's time in and out of battle singing as loudly and as off-tune as it could manage, which was far too considerable for a bird roughly the size of half a coffee mug.

As a battle strategy, it wasn't half-bad.

Tsuna usually tried to steer clear of them four, because one unless Principal Reborn decided to throw him into certain very specifically dangerous battles he was a consistent loser while they topped the charts, and two, everyone but Chrome steered clear of Mukuro, who had started a little after the rest of them, and had started without his _ears_. No one else in the first year had lost their ears yet. His weird novelty lensed left eye didn't help.

Tsuna twitched his own childishly overlarge ears at the thought, and turned his gaze to a group of clustered seniors (the unmatched seniors turned out in force when the first-years matched up, with their paired friends coming to cheer and jeer indiscriminately), dressed in the black leathers worn by a group of the best fighters in the upper years.

He kept looking at them just long enough for him to recognize Dino-sempai's partner in Defenseless, a sharp-faced, long-haired boy for whom there could be no more ironic moniker. The boy _next _to him of course, Tsuna knew by sight and school legend, the sacrifice raised as fighter who refused to accept his fate. He'd remained unmatched for three years and was likely to remain so for more, as he would never accept a fighter partner. It didn't seem to hamper him unduly, as he was one of the best battlers in the school, paired or otherwise. Few of those in the third year kept their ears, especially those in his little gang- but Xanxus still had his, and on him they weren't cutesy little symbols of childhood or inexperience, but dangerous indicators of focus- always flat against his head, black as night.

Tsuna kept hopefully searching for some small, sweet sacrifice, whom- he hoped- he would be able to keep and protect and- and _love_, all their days…

The Varia gave up their vigil and filed out after their leader, joking and sneering among themselves. Tsuna was morosely contemplating the remaining first-years- he'd felt nothing from them, he'd have to wait another year-

Xanxus brushed past Tsuna with the slightest of touches, not in the sort of mood to push away an undersized first-year when Squalo and Levi would do it would much greater enthusiasm.

And then they both felt it at once, the deep, crackling awareness, the spark and tingle- like lightning, like love, only not anything so flash- of a thousand nerves recognizing their one true counterpart, newly found and always there.

They turned utterly astounded eyes upon each other, and perhaps that was what saved Tsuna from being immediately killed by Xanxus- the staring of a child's eyes, fixed upon the Remorseless written across his collarbone like a threat.

-tbc-


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Without Regrets  
Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, and- well, you'll see.  
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything.  
Summary: Things start to snowball, because it can only get downhill from here.

Later, sitting in Reborn's office, Tsuna quaked and shivered, the first because that was his natural reaction to being in Reborn's office at anytime whatsoever, and the second because Xanxus had torn his shirt in his haste to reveal the identical mark they wore above their hearts, and Tsuna, being an unfortunately scrawny being, was cold.

His sacrifice (and how strange to think the word he had cherished for so long in relation to the tall, rangy and extremely feared senior) was railing at all seven of the teachers, positively incandescent with rage.

Tsuna bid a quiet, miserable farewell to his sweet, shy dream sacrifice. Squalo, who'd snuck in and was keeping a careful eye on the fireworks, having lost the janken outside to be the unfortunate Varia chosen to watch for whether they'd all need to be several miles away from the dorm by the time Xanxus came back, looked at him sideways and snickered. "Remorseless?" he said, not one to keep his mouth shut in favour of his life. "That's almost as big a joke as mine is, runt. It's good for boss-" and here Squalo seemed to remember that the words 'good' and 'named in a pair as a sacrifice' were not concepts to be mentioned in the same country as Xanxus in relation to him if you wanted to retain your face or all your teeth, and changed his tack. "A bit better than my joke, maybe, but _damn _it looks bad on you. Remorseless failure, maybe."

Tsuna knew all about the sorta-story behind Defenseless' name, having asked Dino about it when Reborn had sent the good-natured senior to motivate Tsuna (or possibly to scare him thoroughly about what it meant to be _so damn bad_ that the principal took your progress directly into his hands) and received a smiling, self-conscious answer. It was common knowledge that neither Dino or Squalo bothered all that much with defensive spells, they let their attacks be their defense, one and all- a risky way to fight, but one that paid off for them well.

_Remorseless_, he thought, and turned his mind away from what it might mean, because _he wasn't going to live to find out_. He looked at Squalo, scraped hard as nails from years of being Xanxus's second, and feared.

Xanxus finished off an awesome oratory featuring rage, amazement and a truly terrifying array of threats and promises, to find the teachers, as was their custom whenever they faced a insubordinate student, soundly asleep. He made a noise like a volcano threatening eruption, and Squalo, with his famous reflexes, chucked Tsuna outside and slammed the door behind them both as quickly as he dared.

"Fuck, boss's in a mood. Looks like I'm bunking with the idiot tonight," said Squalo, and quite casually dragged Tsuna over to the clump of Varia members watching the admin building as though it might explode. "Dino'd kill me if I let his favourite tiny person be squashed," he said by way of explanation, before plunking Tsuna down in front of a collection of the most violent, feared people in the whole school, shirtless and utterly vulnerable.

They were taking bets on how long Tsuna had before Xanxus killed him, and by what means.

"Okay," said a blond and apparently eyeless boy. "I think it'll be in the café, with the chairs, in a week." He looked at Tsuna and changed his bet with a hungry grin, "actually, make that an hour. I'll be right because I'm a prince."

"Oh, how cute," said a boy with shaved and dyed hair. "Look, he's still got his ears." He reached out to touch them, and Tsuna flinched back, twitching.

Squalo looked over the tallies. "In the training grounds, made to look like an accident, the next time we have paired training. And for you, Lus, wherever you least expect it, with his bare hands, about five seconds after boss hears that you tried to lay a hand on his property. He's in a bad enough mood as is, I don't want to have to move in with the fucking idiot permanently. Hands off."

The boy pouted, but snatched his hand back with all speed.

"It'll never work," said a tattooed, pierced boy who was laying bets on Tsuna's violent death like he wanted to facilitate it himself. "Boss'll never settle for being a Sacrifice, ever." The look he sent the much smaller boy promised him that even if Xanxus did (when they all received invitations by flying pig to help the devil buy his ice-skates for the party he was throwing in hell) _he_ never would.

And neither, Tsuna was absolutely certain, would 'boss'. For all of above five milliseconds he contemplated adding, 'off the Tokyo tower, spattered on the ground, as fast as I can buy the tickets', but did not quite dare.

.0.

"MMAUUURGGGGH," said Gokudera, with Yamamoto's tie stuffed in his mouth and his fighter (oh how he despised the possessive pronoun) on his back and Sasagawa Ryohei of Artless on his legs. He'd been carefully disarmed after he'd had a slight heart attack at seeing Tsuna shirtless with his name black and cold on his collarbone, and jumped before six words had left Tsuna's mouth. ("Well, Xanxus is a little roug-")

The other half of Artless, Sasagawa Kyouko, carefully sewed up Tsuna's shirt, clucking all the while in concern.

"Well," Yamamoto said, in one of his usual feats of supreme understatement, "that sounds bad."

"Bad?" said Miura Haru, who'd also suffered a supreme disappointment today. She was part of Tactless, with the blond boy (who was in their year, if in most of the advanced classes) who'd made constant claims to royalty. "This is the WORSE! What if Xanxus kills Tsuna-kun? What if those stories the seniors told us about the baby's blood are true? Haru doesn't want Tsuna-kun to DIE!"

"The only way to do this," said Ryohei, struggling with a scrawny smoker who weighed less than half of what the older boy bench-pressed, "is to the EXTREME! Tsuna, you must be a good fighter to the MAX! Then, your sacrifice will accept you for SURE!"

It was generally accepted as fact that Ryohei, despite undisputed claim to the title of loudest student ever, had also claim to the title of densest, despite all the competition Yamamoto, Haru and his sister had given him for it.

Tsuna looked up at the ceiling, and wondered if he was _really_ going to die without ever coming so much as close to losing his ears.

.0.

"Students," said Reborn in his usual squeaky tones, "today I want all the new pairs to familiarize themselves with their partners- _all_ the new pairs," he said, and made an adorably frowny face at Xanxus and Tsuna sitting as far away from each other as they could get.

"I'm a prince," said Bel, and smiled in a creepy way at Haru, hand clasped over the Tactless branded on her arm. "So you can be a princess, princess."

"Haru a princess?" She breathed, forgetting almost instantly that she was supposed to be eternally opposed to fate. "Oh how sweet," she said, and smiled in way even more creepy than Bel's. "Okay, then- Prince!"

"OH GOD HOW DID I GET STUCK WITH YOU," shouted Gokudera. "AND DO YOU NEVER WASH YOUR DAMN TIE, IT TASTED FUCKING DISGUSTING-"

"This looks like a lot of fun," said Mukuro, and Chrome said, "Yes."

Outside, Hibird sang loudly, and Hibari idly considered which of the new pairs it would be most fun to bite to death first.

Tsuna and Xanxus looked at each other, and six of the seven teachers, the in-school doctor, Shamal, and every one within hearing range found excuses to hang around the assembly hall.

"I," said Tsuna with a sort of prepared finality (he'd written his will last night) "I _don't want to die,_" he blurted out, and stood all clenched up ready for a violent death.

"I'm not going to kill you," said Xanxus, with an _I can't believe this retard _face. "If I did, I could never battle again. We need to _talk_, and then you need to do whatever I fucking say, because I can think of a thousand fates worse than death that don't need to be it. Understand?"

Tsuna nodded like a man fatally sure that the light at the end of the tunnel means the tunnel's on fire.

"Good," said Xanxus, and glared around at the circle of incredulous spectators. "Is this a circus sideshow? Are you all looking to die? _Fuck off._"

The hall cleared faster than Mukuro could clear the boy's showers. Which, for those who would have been happy never to know that fact, is pretty damn fast.

And then Xanxus grabbed Tsuna by one impossibly velvet-soft ear, and pulled him out of the building.

-tbc-


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Without Regrets  
Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, and- well, you'll see.  
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything. And, it's getting more serious from here. Also a friend of mine said she saw me posting a lot on the comm lately, which I think is a sign to stop spamming people, so I'll wait till I finish the 4th part then post there.  
Summary: Things get better, and things get worse.

Xanxus walked along rattling out alternate rules and admonitions with machine-gun speed, dragging Tsuna by the ear, his other hand rifling through and dismissing the contents of Tsuna's academic bag.

"How do you get marks like this? How does _anybody_ get marks like this? I don't care if you never get _a second of fucking sleep again_, just raise these damn marks, I can't be paired with an idiot, it's bad enough being paired with a weakling."

"Ow," said Tsuna, and ran to keep up with Xanxus's militant stride.

"You're dead weight, but you don't have to fucking act like it. Get to a level of reasonable ability- enough so that you don't drag me down in the rankings- OR-" and here Xanxus stopped and steered Tsuna through a door he'd never seen before, still ear first.

They were at the _private_ training rooms, booked only at the discretion of seniors- and even then only the most powerful or popular of seniors, who could afford to steamroller everyone else to get one without threat of painful retribution.

Some third-year pairs were gathered in the central area, chatting lightly after their morning's workout before they had to break for classes.

Tsuna sobbed with relief at the sight of Dino's friendly face.

"Tsuna!" said the blond, and frowned at Xanxus, who had dropped him and was crossing out someone else's name on the sign-in sheet to fill in that of Remorseless. "Xanxus, he's only a first-year. Don't push him like this."

"Oooiii!" said Squalo. "Xanxus, gonna teach the runt a lesson? Can I watch? Damn, I might actually win the bet even earlier than I expected-"

"_What bet?_" said Dino, turning onto his fighter like a sacrifice scorned.

"In," said Xanxus, ignoring the play of inter-pair relations/married couple spat, kicking open a door and going through it without looking back.

He settled into a chair, leaning it back against the wall with practiced ease. If Tsuna had tried that, he would have first fallen flat on his ass, then his head, and finally made to pay damages for breaking the chair. Xanxus made it look easy, the way he made everything look easy. That was how life seemed to be when it came to everybody but Tsuna- easy, effortless, and much, much better.

Xanxus, looking Tsuna over like livestock being prepped for slaughter, saw this: an under grown boy with ears and tail too large for him, like a child's, nervous and twitchy, a complete loser, and yet somehow better than him, _better_, just because of a tiny quirk of fate that had made him fighter.

Controlling the completely redundant urge to smash something, preferably the runt's head, but aware that, among other things, killing the fighter now would make Squalo win the bet, a concession he was not prepared to grant, Xanxus said, "Spell battle. Show me what pitiful little you have."

It was a total disaster.

"I-" said Tsuna, when the chains dissolved and Xanxus had still not gotten up from his chair, face working itself between completely expressionless and extremely expressionless, and Tsuna could see the disgust on the edge of his eyes like shadow, "I don't like. To fight."

To Xanxus this was like saying he didn't like to breathe, and a concept utterly alien to him, which he dismissed out of hand into the category, _weakling, do not waste extremely large brain capacity on_.

"Training," said Xanxus abruptly, and stood to leave in a sleek sinuous movement of black legs and black jacket and black tail. "You'll train until you damn well _bleed_."

.0.

"You can't keep bleeding," explained Shamal patiently. "The body only has a limited amount of blood it can replace each day. If you lose too much, you die."

"Then," snarled Gokudera, "_Treat him_, you damn quack."

"I don't treat men," said Shamal, and turned away from them to blow smoke out the open window.

"I don't think this is working out," said Yamamoto, eyeing Tsuna carefully in way that he only eyed people when he saw that fighters, back when they were unmatched, were neglecting their sacrifices, and he was about to lay a smack down of epic proportions.

Tsuna took prompt steps to avoid the imminent demise of Tireless's fighter at the hands of Remorseless's sacrifice.

"No, no, no," he said. "It's working. It's- it's getting better. _I'm_ getting better- even Xanxus said so-" and he loved the little warm glow of that memory, when he had managed- just with one desperate word- to knock Levi on his ass, hard enough to sting- and Xanxus had glowed a bit with an intense focus and said, "Do that again." (He hadn't, of course, because Levi had come back up with a spell that made Xanxus hiss out his breath in a warning snarl and landed Tsuna in the doc's, but- _but._)

"I-" he said, firmly. "I don't want any of you to interfere. This is my problem- our problem. Xanxus is helping me."

"What, to an early grave?" muttered Gokudera, but his eyes were dark with worry, and then they all jumped when the door flew open and banged on much-abused hinges.

Xanxus chucked Levi in, having apparently dragged the other boy up two flights of stairs with brute strength and strategic blows to the head. He wasn't even breathing hard and his jacket was immaculate, his hair perfectly disheveled, and Tsuna noted this all and wished he didn't look so utterly pathetic covered in inadequate band-aids and pale from blood loss.

"This idiot," said Xanxus, "has used an untested spell on him. He will not stop bleeding. If he does not stop bleeding within the next five minutes, I'll rip your fucking head off and transfuse your worthless blood into him because I do not have to say things twice and I've already said you keep your _goddamn worthless hands off my fucking property_."

Levi looked like he would like nothing more than to die right then and there, but he stumbled over to Tsuna, and began to mutter.

Xanxus looked at Tsuna, saw the pale arch of cheeks hollowed by long nights and longer beatings on the battleground, set eyes and calm mouth, and thought, _good_.

(There was a curious sort of beauty in this, to him- he too had spent many hours exalting in the pain of battles won, when they said that no sacrifice, though able to cast spells, would be able to fight- but fight he had, and won. Tsuna would be able to win, too, and everything was going his way for once, his plans were all working out. Remorseless stood out dark and cold against the pale pink and white flesh drained of blood, it was a name, his name- and, if everything continued going well, _their_ name. Nothing had to change.)

Tsuna looked up at him and smiled wanly. "Thank you, Xanxus," he said, and felt that this was working, it _was_.

The older boy reached out to run a hand through Tsuna's hair on impulse, big hand sliding over soft hair and softer fur, and watched with cool satisfaction Tsuna light up with joy. It was a good thing that he had been paired, if Tsuna could stay obedient and he could make the loser into a winner while staying at the top of his game, because this nervous, fragile little boy was _his_. "Brush your damn hair," he suggested, without heat or the roaring anger he'd felt when Levi had made his stammering confession.

Everyone else in the room would have looked away, if they could- fighter and sacrifice together, sharing a moment of their unique intimacy- so right, and yet somehow so horribly wrong.

-tbc-


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Without Regrets  
Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, and- well, you'll see.  
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything. Thanks to **pandarosi** and **gauche** for the info on and idea of Night Training, without which you would have gotten an extremely lame plot device.  
Summary: The plot thickens, on a night where the bonds between pairs are tested for the first time.

Tsuna began to live for the little moments of nice quiet he could have with Xanxus- and Xanxus reciprocated, in his way, left the Varia to their own devices and partners and went to sleep or think in obscure corners with Tsuna working on his battle skills or his school work.

Even though Tsuna, too, would also have liked to sleep, he knew that it made Xanxus angry to see him slacking off when he still had so much to do.

Sometimes he did fall asleep, though- and on these occasions when Xanxus woke up first, sometimes he got angry, but as he grew more and more fond of the scurrying little boy who, though he has usurped Xanxus's rightful place, was obedient and properly deferential, sometimes he let him sleep, and thought nothing of that Tsuna slept so deeply Xanxus could rub the soft edges of ears without waking him.

It was in one of these moments that they were approached by the chain-smoker who was one of Tsuna's little dancing monkeys, the sacrifice of the team Tireless. (This wasn't difficult to see, since his name was in clear evidence on his forearm, exposed by a rolled up sleeve.)

For a few seconds they regarded each other, Gokudera with mild surprise and Xanxus with a _so fucking go away already_ face.

Gokudera looked at Tsuna, small (er, if that was possible, eating more and losing weight), pale (from lack of sleep and blood, he seemed to lose more everyday) and so exhausted he slept deeper than he had ever seen, even after the first few times Reborn had taken interest in him. And his goddamn stupid sacrifice just there, making Tsuna- making him like this.

"I would have been his sacrifice," said Gokudera abruptly, and looked at Xanxus with eyes that hated and pitied him and loved the small boy on his lap, all at once. "You don't even know what that means, and suddenly you're everything I ever wanted to be."

For a dizzying instant Xanxus's world narrowed, to three people, this enemy, his Tsuna, and him. He wanted to _kill_ this upstart so badly it choked him and he couldn't move.

"You can't help him," said Gokudera, continuing to labor under the delusion that he was still speaking because he had something important to say. "You'll never help him; you'll only hurt him because that's _all you stupid fighters know how to do_. But-" he said, the shadows of deep longing in his face- and Xanxus hates him so much, _so much_, "Not him. He doesn't know how to want to hurt people. He only knows how to let people hurt him and hurt him until there's nothing left." He stopped talking then, gleamed with tears of anger and frustration because Tsuna _loves_ this asshole and there's no way he'll ever understand what he has until after he destroys it.

"You're not his sacrifice," said Xanxus, seeing the tears and thinking _weak. Weak_.

No way he'll ever understand. "Neither are you," Gokudera seethed, and walked away.

.0.

"Well," said Reborn, "it's a little sooner than I wanted, but I think we should start holding the night training again."

Lal Mirch stared at him flatly and said, "Are the pairs _ready_?"

"When have you ever cared about the students being _ready_?" muttered Collonello, and received a kick on his diminutive head as response.

"Indeed," said Viper, blowing his nose. "Some of the new pairs… Merciless, and Deathless- not mention the whole convoluted mess of Remorseless…"

"Maybe," allowed Reborn. "But can any of you think of anything better…?"

"…Three days from now, then," said Lal Mirch. "Have Skull make the announcement after classes."

"Wait, hell- _why me-_"

WHACK.

.0.

They watched the minutes tick away, counting down- some were excited, some were nervous, and all were making _plans_.

Some more plans than others, of course, because this night would determine the first of the new rankings, mixing in the first-years with the rest of the ever-growing pool of Fighters and Sacrifices.

_Tonight,_ thought Mukuro to himself, feeling Chrome- dear Chrome- and knowing that she would make her way to him as soon as she could while _he_- his eye flared a hard sharp pain, and he gritted his teeth.

_Tonight_, thought Xanxus, and waited hungry for blood.

Then the clock struck, and doors opened to let out student after student, who all began to search.

There was a pair outside, as well- and they started their own search.

.0.

"Damn this is ridiculous," said Gokudera. "Can't the idiot just stay still? He's so damn stupid…" but he could hear the faint calm presence of Yamamoto on the edge of his senses, and pressed through wandering, concentrating students to find his fighter.

"Hell's he out _here_ for?" muttered the sacrifice, picking his way through the landscaped gardens- looming and shadowy in the nighttime.

He was careful- Yamamoto was more than dumb and dense enough to be hanging around a completed pair, who would jump them as soon as they met. It was a simple enough trick to be ready for, if an effective one.

A shadow flashed over him and dropped, a small yellow ball of fluff- Hibari's bird, stained with blood and fluttering terrified on his head.

"Hibari! Hibari!" it chirped, and Gokudera clutched it gently and _ran_.

Hibird had come from where Yamamoto was- and now that Gokudera thought to check, he could barely feel the idiot at all.

.0.

Tsuna poked his head out carefully, mindful that some students would be less then careful about who or what they smashed into on their way to their partners. Xanxus knew where he was, and was coming to find him- the other boy would be damned if he was caught into battle on any turf not of his own choosing.

"Sawada-kun," said Mukuro, and smiled at him gently, hand reaching up to his eye. There were two people behind him that Tsuna didn't recognize- second-years, third? One had a funny hat and glasses, while the other had barrettes pinning back his wild yellow hair.

"Mukuro-san!" said Tsuna, smiling politely. "Are you looking for Chrome?"

"Well," said Mukuro, taking out his red contact. "No, Sawada-kun. I was looking for you."

The eye beneath the contact was also red- and on it, clear and black as a name, was a zero, in the place where Mukuro-san's pupil should rightly be.

-tbc-

_Fuck me_, I'm rewriting the Kokuyo Arc. This was totally supposed to be a short crack ficlet, you guys. ;;;;;;


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Without Regrets  
Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, and- well, you'll see.  
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything, especially here, where I begin to display my absolute lack of knowledge about the Loveless battle system. Also: I HAVE FINALLY SETTLED ON 7 PARTS GO ME :D :D  
Summary: Zero are in the building.

Hibari was lying outlined in the glow of the tasteful garden lights and arcs of shadow, twitching, and struggling inch by inch to move. Yamamoto was crouched beside him, clutching his head with blood dripping from his hairline.

"_Bastard_," said Gokudera, and dropped Hibird on Hibari to pull Yamamoto up by his collar. "What the hell is this- were you fighting with Hibari? _Why were you fighting without me_?"

"Wasn't," said Yamamoto, he squinted at Gokudera as though he was myopic- a sure sign of having been hit on the head- and _hard_, to damage that thick skull. "Hibari- he- we- fighting someone else."

"Who?" said Gokudera, already spreading his hands and letting the words walk to the front of his mind.

"Zero," said Yamamoto, and motioned for him to attend to Hibari first. "They said their name

was Zero."

.0.

"Well," said Mukuro. "This was quite disappointing. Hibari and Yamamoto both lasted much longer than _that_."

"Hi- Hibari-san? And- and- you- Yamamoto- Gokudera-kun!" choked out Tsuna, the chains growing tighter, tighter.

"Gokudera?" said Mukuro. "No, he wasn't there- and we aren't after sacrifices, yet, anyway."

He picked his way over to Tsuna delicately, pulled up his chin and examined the Remorseless on the smaller boy's body like it interested him terribly.

"Is it nice?" he asked musingly, tracing the letters with one gloved hand. "To have your own name?" he smiled suddenly, and leaned forward as if to confide a joke. "We don't have our own," he said. "Do you know what Zero are, Sawada-kun? We're grown in labs, underground. We don't feel pain, we don't have names. Because- you know, there are some amazing fighters, and yet they get wasted with bad sacrifices. Isn't it terrible? So some clever people had the idea of making pairs who could be switched or changed at any time, because they're Zero. Nothing. Worthless. And of course they made some improvements while they could, so that we would be less worthless. Ken, please?"

The scary blond produced a knife out of nowhere, and drew it down one rough palm to produce a thin red line. He made a snarly face at Tsuna and sneered, "Never seen anything like this, have you, Fighter? It doesn't hurt us. Nothing hurts us."

"I don't understand you, though-" said Mukuro. "Shouldn't you have done something to your Sacrifice by now? Hurt him, like all fighters do? But I suppose you're too soft-hearted for that. Wouldn't you be happy to have a sacrifice like one of us? You'd never hurt us, because we can never feel pain. You could hurt us and hurt us all you like."

"No," Tsuna forced out, looking at Mukuro with sad, sad eyes because he was talking like he wanted to hurt everything and yet, yet, Tsuna could see him hurting, couldn't imagine being hurt so much that he wanted to do nothing else but hurt the world back, knew what it was like to think that you were worthless and knew that someone a person like sad, quiet Chrome loved so much couldn't be worthless, couldn't be as bad as he was talking himself up to be.

"That's what they all say," said Mukuro, still smiling, closing his eyes against the emotion in Tsuna's own. "You'd think they'd find a better lie to tell."

.0.

For some arcane reason, Xanxus found himself being kept pace with by the thin, quiet girl who had come to the school already matched (a rare enough occurrence that even he had heard about it), moving in one direction against a trickle moving the other way. Tsuna was in one of the more outlying buildings, he was staying put, well and proper, like he should be.

She stiffened and ran forward, crying, "Mukuro-sama! What-"

A bespectacled boy grabbed her and pushed her out the door connecting to the place where Tsuna was, while her partner waved a cruel, casual goodbye.

"Hi, Chrome," he said. "I've finally decided to rid myself of all this excess dead weight. I don't need a pretend fighter anymore. Don't come near me again, bye!"

"…Hell?" said Xanxus, when they closed the door and locked it with a key they weren't supposed to have. "Move it, trash, and unlock that door. My partner is-"

"No," said Mukuro. "Well, he is still in there- I don't think he even has the strength to crawl. We beat him pretty badly. But waiting for you? He'll wait in vain, _sacrifice_."

Xanxus turned a look of absolute fury upon him, and attacked.

.0.

Merciless and Tireless came upon Tsuna when they followed the trail of Zero and went into one of the outer buildings, Gokudera supporting Yamamoto and Hibird perched on his master's shoulder, chirping in concern, Hibari having refused all further assistance with a death glare.

"_Tsuna_," said Gokudera, and promptly dropped Yamamoto on his ass to run to his friend's side.

"Gokudera-kun," said Tsuna, smiling, because they were _okay_, if a little damaged. "Yamamoto, Hibari-san." The bird fluttered forward to land on his chest, and pecked him on the chin where Mukuro had grabbed him so hard he bruised.

"Sawada-kun?" came a wavering female voice, and Chrome appeared, looking just as fluttery as Hibird and worried.

"You!" shouted Gokudera, looking furious. "Deathless did this, didn't they? Where is he? Your sacrifice!"

Tsuna remembered with strange clarity that no one, ever, had seen either Chrome's or Mukuro's name. "Chrome-san," he said. "You're not Deathless, are you? You two, I mean."

"No," whispered the girl, her face all crumpled in misery. "No. Mukuro-sama- Mukuro-sama has another name. Did he hurt you? Why is he doing this?"

"What?" said Yamamoto. "You don't know?"

"No," she said again, and darted a glance back the way she had come with fear. "He- he told me to go away. He said I was useless to him. He-" her voice caught on a sob, and she grabbed Tsuna's arm in panic. "He's fighting Xanxus! Back in the other building!"

Hibari's head snapped up and he ran for the door, Hibird following after.

"…wow," said Yamamoto. "That guy really hates to lose, huh?"

"Well," said Tsuna, vastly relieved. "If it's Xanxus, he really doesn't have a chance, Mukuro will be defeated-"

"I would have said," said Gokudera slowly, "That if it was Hibari and this idiot together, even in not a paired battle, Mukuro wouldn't have stood a chance."

Chrome shook her head frantically. "Mukuro-sama- He- gets lot stronger when he does something to his eye- and- and-" she looked down. "He really is only a sacrifice, isn't he? And you're here-"

And then Tsuna remembered, the horrible cold feel of his words, the world tilting beneath them, the fact that Mukuro _felt no pain_.

He struggled up, and looked at them, hesitating. "I-"

"We'll go," said Yamamoto immediately. "I have a debt to pay to that Zero team of theirs."

"_We_ have a debt to Zero," said Gokudera. "Remorseless or Merciless can handle Mukuro, no problem. We'll make sure you're not interrupted."

Chrome flinched. "Mukuro-sama told me to stay away from him," she whispered, and did not get up.

Tsuna nodded to her, patting her arm awkwardly. "Let's go," he told his friends, and they ran.

.0.

"Uwah," said Mukuro, and smiled. "No wonder you can make it as a fighter. You're really strong."

Xanxus, caught in the first of Mukuro's hells, battered by the rest, could only snarl curses and futile spells.

"You really," said Mukuro, and eyed him coldly. "are a fighter to your bones, you know. I can't imagine how on earth you managed to hoodwink fate enough to be born a sacrifice. Violent- vicious- unable to do anything other than hurt people- you even hurt your fighter, all the time."

He kicked Xanxus; to the senior the blow appeared to come from open air.

"It's because of people like you that the world is like this," he said. "Because everyone only knows how to hurt, and they don't care about who they hurt or why or how much because they've gotten what they want and that's all that matters. Do you know what it means to be a sacrifice? No." he laughed, and then went _down_.

"Huh?" he said, and turned to look at Hibari, the blow telling true enough to shake his spell. Xanxus returned to his senses again, saw Mukuro and Hibari, saw the two lackeys move forward, open their mouths.

_Bite_, says Hibari. _The worthless herbivores with no fangs can only gather in groups- and they are bitten to death_.

They fell back from the force of it, blood spurting and dripping, disoriented by the _power_, even if the wounds didn't hurt them.

"Hmm," said Mukuro, still on his feet. "As expected, it's difficult to have an advantage over you- but a hasty patch-up won't cover the damage we put on you the last time. Why don't you just put the damage on your sacrifice before I beat on you again? That way you might actually give me a decent fight- although I don't know how much damage that fluffball can take."

"You're not holding a little bird hostage now," said Hibari pleasantly, dangerously. "I refuse to fight properly if there are superfluous influences in my battle. You're finished with your weak little tricks- I'm going to bite you to death."

_Descend into hades_, says Mukuro, and they do.

.0.

"Hey! Intruders!" said Collonello.

"Ahh," said Reborn. "Well, we were expecting this, from the time we let Rokudo Mukuro into the school."

"The nameless will always remain nameless," said Viper. "It was ridiculous to think anything else. He's even abandoned the Deathless fighter, Chrome Dokuro."

"Well," said Reborn. "Has he? But I think we can't just rush in. They stole plenty of dangerous things from the labs when they broke out, and we don't know if they've booby-trapped the rest of the school. The other students are also in danger."

Lal Mirch gritted her teeth. "And we can't let the students know without causing a panic. Fine. We split up and search. Just send one of us-"

"No need," said Reborn. "Those particular students, I think, can handle it for us."

"Hey," said Collonello. "You sure?"

Reborn shrugged. "Trust in your students," he said. "Otherwise, you're just doubting yourself as a teacher."

"You're so irresponsible about things like this," said Lal Mirch. "Fine. Let's go."

-tbc-

It's anyone's guess as to how long the next part will take, cause as you have all seen, I cannot make the damn battles work. ;;


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Without Regrets  
Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, and- well, you'll see.  
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything. Also, I totally cheated on the battles, _because I cannot make them work_.  
Summary: What do words mean when words can mean anything?

The door, when they come to it, looked as though it had been smashed open by rabid elephants.

"Well," said Yamamoto. "He _really_ doesn't like to lose."

"If you can't say anything intelligent," said Gokudera, "_Please never talk again_."

Hibird was perched on a broken spar of wood, grooming his master's blood out of his feathers.

Zero were sort of staring dumbfounded, or staring in glee, at Hibari and Mukuro fighting. Tsuna looked past them all to Xanxus, bleeding against the wall, and burned because he hadn't been _there_.

"Hey!" yelled Gokudera. "_Assholes_! Over here!"

Tireless and Zero went into battle, and Tsuna ducked past Hibari and Mukuro with newfound swiftness because Xanxus was _hurt_ and _why hadn't Tsuna been there_?

.0.

"Didn't we already beat you?" said the one who reminded Gokudera of a wild dog, all long rangy limbs and half-savage face. "Or did you want us to beat up on your sacrifice and then you again, pyon?"

"I'm sorry," said Gokudera, feeling Yamamoto's calm wash over him like rain, "We haven't introduced ourselves. We're Tireless. This idiot who is useless without me is the fighter."

"Who cares, pyon?" snarled the dog. His partner adjusted his glasses.

"You should," said Yamamoto coolly, his face all hard cold planes without mercy or anger.

"Because I'm his sacrifice," said Gokudera, "_And we're going to kick your fucking collective ass_."

They were in a long corridor, with doors all along one side and large glass windows on the other- _Explode like dynamite_, says Gokudera, and _Wash away as rain_, says Yamamoto, and both the teams went out of there in a shower of glass to hit the ground and roll in it.

"Nice trick," said the glasses freak. "But useless against us, we don't feel pain. That glass will only hurt you."

_Strength of the beast_, said dog-boy. _Wolf. Lion. Gorilla. Tear apart with the strength of animals. Reduce to nothing._

.0.

"Xanxus!" cried Tsuna, and shook him. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, peachy," said Xanxus, who had possibly lost his mind with pain and relief. "I'm hideously tortured on a daily- no, hourly basis. This is wonderful." Then his face changed, and he shouted, "_NO_, you damn idiot, I'm not fucking all right and neither are you! Why didn't you call me? Why didn't you _run?_ You can't handle this fucking lunatic. Go get the damn teachers!"

"Augh," said Mukuro, tossing Hibari aside. "Amazing, that he could still even move with that body. Nevertheless-" he turned to Remorseless with something less than his usual pleased expression. "Do go, Sawada-kun. It will give me quite the opportunity to go on with killing your _sacrifice_. They should be all over the place trying to find some of the little surprises we brought from home. Run along now."

"No," said Tsuna, and turned to face Mukuro, there was something in his face soft and hard and deadly. "I won't leave him. I won't run."

"A new lie," said Mukuro. "But not a better one. Not a smart one, either. You'll die if you try to face me."

"Maybe," said Tsuna, and Tsuna is somewhere between _so angry_ and _so sad_ and- and- he isn't very smart and he isn't very strong, but he knows he'll have strength enough for this. He always will. "Are you talking, or fighting?"

And Tsuna reached into himself and found the place where things were eminently simple- _if I am going to die, then I will die without regrets._ Reborn had driven him to this place, once, twice, and shown him what words could mean in a place where words meant everything.

_As if I was about to die_, says Tsuna, and means it with all his heart and soul.

_Descend into hell_, says Mukuro, and laughs because this sheltered, soft-hearted person can't know anything about death or dying, while Mukuro has died a thousand times, to walk through hell as often as he has.

.0.

This is how the battle goes to Xanxus, who hurts like the goddamn emotional pain of incest: Mukuro, and Tsuna, and stupid runt who _cannot_ face Mukuro, because one Mukuro is insane and two has some hang-up about fighters and sacrifices and fighters hurting sacrifices that probably would say many, many bad things about his inability to feel pain and his _being_ goddamn insane except that Xanxus doesn't care because if Mukuro hurts Tsuna, _hurts _him (again), Xanxus will get up and shove his stupid red zero eye up his _nose_ but he can't move, he can't, and Mukuro is hurting Tsuna and Xanxus can do nothing, _nothing_.

But there's never been nothing he can do.

(Including, apparently, turn a loser into a semi-good fighter. Tsuna has never fought like that, _ever_. Xanxus has never fought like that, either.)

They're a pair. It has to mean something- and maybe Xanxus is delirious with pain and fear for Tsuna, but he imagines he can reach for something- _and he does_.

It sends a bolt of pain lancing through him, and chains drop themselves on his broken, bruised limbs. He can't actually work out what he's done until Tsuna turns- and he _does_ know what Xanxus has done.

This is when Mukuro slams up against a wall of willpower made of words, and feels the unshakable conviction snap against him like stone.

.0.

"I'm sorry, _fucktards_," said Gokudera, panting hard, holding on. "But what part of our name did you not understand?" His gaze sharpened like the shards of glass Yamamoto lifted into the air, set up, and ready to bring down like rain. "We're goddamn _Tireless_. We don't give up- _and we never fucking stop_."

While the Zero were staring at the glass, and beginning to laugh, and Gokudera says _Explode_.

.0.

_I'll die before that happens_, says Tsuna, _I'd rather die than let you hurt him or anyone else._

.0.

And then the battle was over for them, as quick as it had begun.

"Well," said Yamamoto presently. "Guess we'd better go and get Tsuna, even if Hibari and Xanxus are with him."

"Especially," said Gokudera, "If those bloodthirsty idiots are with him."

They lifted each other up, carefully- and Gokudera took care to step on the face of the stupid animal boy on his way past.

.0.

Xanxus was breathing shallowly now, feeling the pain curl up his nerves. But if Tsuna was okay, if he could fight-

Mukuro laughed at Tsuna, mocking. "It doesn't hurt me, Sawada-kun. Nothing hurts me."

"Just because you don't hurt," said Tsuna, cool and cold and like no other fighter or battle Xanxus had ever seen. "Just because if the sacrifice takes the damage I won't hurt- _it doesn't mean that we don't bleed_. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt us in some other way. And it doesn't mean that you don't bleed, Mukuro-san. You've lost a lot of blood, rolling around on that glass. Don't you feel dizzy?"

And- damn it all, Mukuro _did_, could feel the weakness slipping up his bones like what he sometimes imagined pain would be like, could feel his powers waver and slip, losing the battle as inevitably as a landslide and slow as snowfall.

They both collapsed, but Remorseless had won.

"You should," said Tsuna, as if he hadn't just fought for his life against this boy, lying there exhausted and close to dying, except the teachers were coming and Mukuro has never had good enough of a life to expect that he'll die before they get here. "You should call Chrome. She won't come here without your permission but- but she's worried about you. She wants to see you."

"She's not part of this," Mukuro breathed.

"I- I know," said Tsuna. "You won't let her come to you because they'll think she helped you but-" he swallowed. "She didn't. We'll tell them. She just wants to see you."

"You're such," said Mukuro flatly, "a damn annoying kid."

Tsuna saw the familiar head moving towards them in the distance, and would have laughed, if he had had the strength. "Yeah," he admitted. "I am."

.0.

After the fact was an entirely anti-climatic thing, little to no fussing whatsoever by the teachers but lots of fussing from Squalo and Levi for Xanxus, and the girls and Dino for everyone else.

Shamal managed to put away his age-old prejudice and treated even the boys, although he spent an inordinate amount of time fussing over Chrome who had no injuries whatsoever, and shuddered violently every time he actually had to lay hands on a boy.

Tsuna got a verdict of not going to die right now and went over to the corner, where Xanxus was drinking a nearly empty bottle of whisky that had been full when Levi brought it down.

"Next time," said Xanxus, feeling a fierce sort of joy and anger (although half of that might have been the whiskey), pulling Tsuna down onto his lap by the tail, "_next time_, you shut your damn yap and let me take the damage, got it? I'm your damn-" he hesitated, and muttered the hated word.

"What?" yelped Tsuna. "But- but- you hate- you'd never-"

"Not for anyone else," said Xanxus, and pressed his head to the soft hair. "But for you. Just you. Because apparently you'll die before you let me get hurt, and I think that sounds like a pretty sweet deal."

-tbc-


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Without Regrets  
Rating: pg-13  
Pairing: Xanxus/Tsuna, Yama/Goku.  
Notes: A Reborn!/Loveless fusion AU, and um, warnings for lots of liberties taken with everything. Also here for implied boi-smexing.  
Summary: Epilogue. FINALLY. :D

The next day when they come down to breakfast without their ears, the whole school does a collective double-take and has hysterics all over the damn place.

Tsuna turns absolutely scarlet and tries to run out and skip breakfast, but there's nothing Xanxus enjoys more than being totally in control of a giant fuss, and he steers them both past stares and whispers and people having hysterics, one bandaged arm draped deliberate over the smaller boy's shoulders.

Tsuna is the very first of the first-years to lose his ears, since Mukuro (who has gone where? No one seems to know) doesn't count. This throws off _everyone's _bets.

It also blows everyone's minds, as they look at Xanxus, and look at Tsuna, and it just sort of Does Not Compute. Yamamoto leads a sobbing- actually sobbing, like a man overcome with grief- Gokudera to them and he throws himself on Tsuna, clutches him and returns Xanxus's extremely dirty look with one of his own.

Yamamoto twitches his tail back and forth and eyes his other half in a distinctly speculative manner. He also eyes Xanxus, who raises an eyebrow back with a complete lack of hostility.

Getting laid, obviously, has done wonders for his temper.

Tsuna tries to comfort Gokudera, and comes face-to-face with Ryohei, who manages to get out one "EXTREME!" before the Varia descend full force to join their leader.

Squalo, who knows it's worth his unbroken bones not to laugh, uses a vaguely horrified Dino as a shield. The rest of them- who, apparently, Did Not See This Coming, to a man- crowd Xanxus and stare at him beseechingly, making extremely Irish coffee, hoping against hope that there was some other conclusion that could be drawn from a pair disappearing into a room together and emerging without their ears.

There isn't, of course, and Xanxus tells them in tones of _you have no idea how excessively pleased with myself I am_ that "You idiots have been telling me to lose my fucking ears for years. Now I have. Get out of my face and fetch my damn breakfast. Fetch his, too."

But a school full of teenagers is a school full of teenagers; even teenagers who made each other bleed and suffer on a regular basis. They settled back into a new routine, where the Varia (all of whom agog to hear the story of the Zero) and Tsuna's friends sort of became an indistinguishable mass, led by Remorseless and Tactless.

One day a letter arrives for Chrome, and she presses it into Tsuna's hands before blushing and running away.

"What's that, runt?" says Squalo, snatching it out of his hands. "A love letter?"

Gokudera snorts. "Why the hell would Chrome give Tsuna a love letter? And that's not yours, give it back."

Squalo sneers at him and fumbles the envelope open, drawing out the suspiciously and frankly creepily pink letter with a cry of glee.

"Holy shit," says Squalo, mouth dropping open. "It _is_ a love letter."

It read:

_Dear Tsuna-kun,_

_If you ever get tired of your dumb, violent sacrifice, Chrome and I are perfectly willing to share me with you. 3 3 3_

_(I bet he was really, really rough in taking your ears. Poor baby. I wouldn't be. ;D)_

There was a little pineapple where the signature would have gone on a letter not written by a lunatic. And a lot of hearts.

Xanxus rips it into tiny little shreds, and tries to shoot the messenger.

Tsuna panics, runs around, laughs, and is glad. He wouldn't change this life for anything in the world.

_Remorseless: To be without regrets_.

-end-

:DDDDD!


End file.
